Ever stricter legal regulations regarding permissible pollutant emissions from motor vehicles with internal combustion engines arranged therein make it necessary to minimize the pollutant emissions during operation of the internal combustion engine. In one approach, this can be done by reducing the pollutant emissions that arise during the combustion of the air/fuel mixture in the respective cylinder of the internal combustion engine. Another approach involves using, in internal combustion engines, exhaust gas after treatment systems which convert the pollutant emissions generated during the combustion process of the air/fuel mixture in the respective cylinders into non-harmful substances. For this purpose, use is made of exhaust gas catalytic converters which convert carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides into non-harmful substances.
Both the targeted influencing of the generation of pollutant emissions during combustion and also the conversion of the pollutant components with a high efficiency by means of the exhaust gas catalytic converter presuppose a very precisely set air/fuel ratio in the respective cylinder. In this connection, use is made of lambda probes, for example, in particular linear lambda probes, to be precise in the context of lambda control. A linear lambda probe can also be designated as a wide-band probe.